by Virna DePaul
When I fanned myself, he laughed. “Like what you see, sweetheart?”
I tipped one shoulder upward and gave him a coy look. “I’m not complaining.”
He wrapped the towel around his waist, and put powdered detergent in the pull out drawer and started the wash. With a loud crash, the ancient washer sprang to life. Corbin jumped back. “Whoa. Not too quiet, is it?”
“You’re in Pontmaison now, sugah, and we don’t have new anything. It costs too much.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Nah, you weren’t being rude, just truthful. Out here, you just learn to deal with loud washers and dryers that need a second or third time around.”
“I’m not complaining. And I won’t say a word to Miss Cecily.”
“Oh, you can complain about the washer, I do all the time. Just don’t complain about Miss Cecily’s cooking.”
He crossed his arms over his muscular chest and I almost pouted at the obscured view of his chiseled chest. “Anyone who tells her she can’t cook is a liar on top of being dumb as an ox. I just had her bacon and eggs today and they were amazing.”
“She can definitely cook.” I bent over and tugged out more laundry from the dryer. “It must be nice to get home cooking after being on the road. Where you headed at summer’s end?”
He hesitated, then scratched at his thick brown beard. “I’m not sure yet.”
I’d never wanted to rub my cheek against scruff so badly. Just looking at Corbin made me want to rush over and climb him, wrap my legs around his waist and have him right there in the middle of Miss Cecily’s basement.
I’d always had a healthy sexual appetite, and paired that with a healthy approach to safe sex. I wasn’t my mom, and I wasn’t going to get pregnant until I wanted a child, so I’d gone on birth control early on, and had stashes of condoms all over my bedroom, in my purse, and at work. If Corbin was half as good as my fantasy last night had made him out to be, I’d be in heaven. Besides, he’d been so kind to wear Miss Cecily’s charm, even though that rock on an old leather strand was far from a fashion statement. Then he’d risked his life and chanced losing a limb or more to a gator to save that unpleasant woman who’d fallen overboard. Corbin was the kind of guy who dove into certain danger and befriended old women.
Who was I fooling? I didn’t want to wait a minute longer to get Corbin into my bed. I wanted to do everything that had gone through my mind last night, and anything else he could come up with.
I wanted to do all of it with Corbin.
“What?” he asked. “You’re staring at me like you want to eat me.”
The next thing I knew, I had my arms wrapped around his neck and my mouth was over his, my tongue dancing back and forth with his at a frantic pace. Both of us were hungry, and we had waited long enough to satiate the fire burning between us.
Good, for me it had been too damn long, and I was tired of being afraid.
His scruff felt rough against my neck as I kissed him, my lips devouring his. I’d hopped onto him, my legs wrapping eagerly around his waist. He was still in nothing more than the towel wrapped around his waist, and his skin was hot where it came into contact with mine. Clearly Corbin was still as eager as he’d been this morning to make out with me and, frankly, do a lot more. I could feel the hardness of his erection, and that hunger was bursting through me. I felt like a wolf, let loose on a rabbit, but Corbin was no hapless bit of prey.
He was every bit as eager as I was.
He held me in his hands, even as he dragged me through the basement and back up the stairs. Eventually, he stumbled to a wall and set me down. Bringing a finger to his mouth, he waited for me to be quiet.
“Shhh, I don’t know where Miss Cecily is. I don’t want her to catch me making out with her favorite boarder, wearing only a towel.”
I giggled. “I’m pretty sure she’s with Cindy, trying to set us up. Otherwise, she would have put you on the first floor. That one has a better bathroom and bigger rooms.”
“Still, though…plus, I’m still covered in swamp water. Let’s go back to the shower and finish what I wanted to start this morning,” he said, grabbing my hand and hurrying up the stairs. He took the risers two at a time, and I knew that feeling, that urgency. In the shower, he didn’t waste time—just stripped me bare and lathered the two of us in soap, then entwined my fingers with his, then pinned me to the wall as the hot water sluiced over our bodies, washing us clean.
When the water started to run cold, he pulled me out and toweled me dry, then let me do the same to him, before we headed to his bedroom. This man was gorgeous, and I took him in as we stood by the bed—from the soft yet not too long beard on his chin that scraped me in all the right ways to the ridges of his perfect eight pack—there was no part of Corbin that wasn’t a work of art. He was everything a girl could want in those soulful brown eyes as well as in his kindness and bravery. There wasn’t anyone I could think of who would just jump in with gators. But he had.
Corbin the Brave.
Corbin the ungodly attractive.
Corbin who was mine if only for a while.
“Please,” I said, barely recognizing the mewling sounds coming from my own throat. I was nervous, and I hoped he’d interpret my goosebumps as a chill and not nervousness. Looking up into his deep chocolate eyes, I felt wetness pool between my legs and my heart thump harder in my chest. I stood there for him, moaning as his hands came to play with my pussy, making sure I was primed and wet and ready for him.
Soon his lips were over my nipple, his tongue flicking fast against it until it had risen into a rigid peak, all while his hands were stroking me, making me wetter than I ever thought I could be. The heat was no longer flaring through my gut, it was a forest fire, raging through me, and making love to him was the only way to put it out.
CHAPTER TEN
Corbin
I never sleep with a woman without first setting boundaries, no matter how hot and steamy the situation. “Aimee,” I said as her hands came down to cup my balls. I shifted away, just enough to keep my focus going but not so much that she’d think she was being rejected. “I need to clear some things up.”
“Is this the standard issue conversation?”
“Meaning?”
“Birth control, diseases, expectations, that sort of thing.”
Her hands were frenzied now, practically clawing me closer. Aimee was as amped up as I was, and she wanted the same thing I did—a good, hard fuck. Except part of me was screaming that it wasn’t just any fuck. This was Aimee, and it was special, not just another moment in a VIP room with an eager groupie. It wasn’t even the fun I’d had in different bars from Los Angeles to Austin and beyond.
This was something primal, and I was digging every goddamn minute of it.
“I’m on the pill,” she said breathlessly, “and completely clean, but I have condoms, too. And I know you’re headed out of Pontmaison in a couple of months, so I have no expectations beyond us having a great time in bed while you’re here.”
“Uh, yeah,” I answered slowly, a little surprised she’d beaten me to the punch. “All that, and well, if we’re going to have a summer fling, it will be just you in my bed. I can’t tell you how to live your life, but I’d prefer—”
“Of course I’ll only sleep with you,” she said, emphatically, then bit my nipple before popping her head back up again and staring at me with wide, crazy-happy eyes. “You drive me crazy, honestly, and there’s no way I’d sleep with anyone else while I’m sleeping with you. But god, Corbin, I’m at the point where I will go flat-out bonkers if I don’t get you inside me. If you’re good with that?” She grabbed me and pushed me onto the bed.
“I’m good with that,” I managed to get out before she straddled me.
Now nothing stood between her and my rock hard erection. Her olive skin was slicked with sweat and it caught the light of the noon sun, making her skin glisten like bronze. Those eyes of hers were clamped shut even as she thrust
against me and raked her fingernails over my chest, those sharp nails digging into me with the perfect mix of pleasure and pain.
But that wasn’t what we both wanted.
Time for me to take control.
Rolling to my stomach, I pinned Aimee under me. The damned rock hanging around my neck that Miss Cecily had given me dangled down, touching right where Aimee’s heart lie. She shivered at the cool touch, and I kissed away the cool sensation, aware of how rapidly and strong her heart beat under my lips.
“More, Corbin,” she mewled.
I obeyed, brushing my cock against her inner thigh. It jerked at the soft warmth of her, and I had to bite my tongue and think of baseball stats before I was ready again. No way was I disappointing her, and, usually man, that was hardly a problem, but I’d rarely had a woman affect me the way Aimee had. She got under my skin and seemed to be in my blood and my soul.
“Are you ready?” I murmured, wishing I could be inside her already.
Aimee seemed to hesitate for just an instant before nodding yes. “Condom.”
I rolled off of her just long enough to roll latex over my cock and got back to the right position. Now the head of my dick was rubbing against her lips, feeling the juices that had already slicked them. Pivoting onto my knees, I lined up with her core and plunged deep inside her. Aimee hissed and then bit her lip, and I was worried she hadn’t had sex in a long time. She was tight, fit me perfectly and her pussy was so hot and wet, everything I’d wanted since I’d first seen her.
But it was more than that.
I could see her eyes, those gorgeous grey-green ones that made me feel so alive just looking into them. For a moment, I didn’t move, and I felt myself get lost in her soul. Then I moved my hips back and forth, slowly at first as Aimee stretched to accommodate me. Finally, she wrapped her legs around my waist and started to raise up her hips to meet mine. Together, we rocked and I closed my eyes, letting the sensations slide over me—the sweet rose of her perfume mixed with her own scent and sweat, the soft brown curls of her hair in my right palm as I grabbed her head, and the sensual heat enveloping my cock.
But there was more building, that heat that started from where we were joined together was scorching through my body, like lava in my veins. Then Aimee moaned, cried out almost like a jungle cat or some other animal. Everything between us was that raw. That was all I fucking needed. I came then, shooting my seed deep inside her, loving the way her muscles spasmed around me. After a while, I slid out of her and brought Aimee to my chest.
Kissing the top of her head, I asked, “You seemed a little tight. Not that I mind, but had it been a while?” She stilled in my arms, and I wasn’t sure what she was being so quiet about. “Aims? Is everything okay?”
She sighed and looked up at me, her grey-green eyes worried, and I had no idea what I’d done to make her that nervous. “I’m no virgin, but it has been a while.”
I pulled her closer to me. “Why now?” I ask, secretly pleased she’d taken me to bed when she didn’t make it a habit. I didn’t judge women on how they expressed their sexuality, either by having lots of partners or just a few. But that Aimee was discerning, and had picked me, made this a little more special.
She reached out and let her fingers play with the rock necklace I was still wearing. “Maybe it’s this talisman.”
“It’s a necklace,” I argued.
“You know what I mean,” she said, smiling softly. “It’s that Cecily trusted you enough to give you something as special as this, and I do, too.”
I felt a surge of guilt—Aimee trusted me, but she didn’t know I was the bass player from Point Break. She didn’t know the real me. I found my mind working to rationalize my decision not to tell her who I really was. First, I didn’t want anyone to know who I was—I’d come to Pontmaison with the idea that I could hide out from the public eye for a while, take a breather while the band was on break, see if I could find my mojo once again. Second, Aimee had this thing about not dating musicians, and that was bound to magnify if she found out just how big a musician I was. Third, when women found out I was famous, they stopped seeing me for who I was and just saw the bass player for Point Break. Fourth, the reverse was true too. The few times I’d tried to have a relationship with a woman, even a casual one, she couldn’t handle the fact I was a rock star. That women threw themselves at me. They became jealous. Insecure. Clingy. I didn’t want that to happen with Aimee. For her to modify her behavior because of who she perceived me to be.
Aimee saw me for who I was, not what I was, and I wanted more of that.
Besides, she had her secrets, too.
But there was one question I did want answered. “What’s with the no musicians rule? You seemed to love the music Bayou Beaux was putting out last night, I saw how you’d tap your foot or move in rhythm to the music while you were working. You like music, just not musicians. Why?”
She sighed again and traced patterns over my nipples. They went as rigid as my cock, and I could stay in this bed forever, just feeling her fingers on my skin. Aimee had some talent. That was for damn sure.
“My mom’s a groupie to the max. Lily is always falling for Mr. Wrong, every freaking time. And they’re always musicians.”
“Always?”
“Every single guy. Lily is like a grown-up groupie, always following bands around, sleeping with whichever musician wanted her, not caring that they move on without her. She’d leave me time and again with neighbors, friends, my uncle Daniel, just to chase after another rocker or blues guy who’d dump her the minute he could unwrap her clinging arms from around his neck.”
“What about your father? Wasn’t he in the picture? Couldn’t he take care of you?”
She snorted. “My dad was some big rock star. She met him in a club in New Orleans but when he found out she was pregnant, he left her high and dry. She doesn’t even know the guy’s name.”
“That’s rough,” I said, and meant it.
“My friend Elaine says I have abandonment issues.”
Her words spiked in my chest and I felt my breathing go shallow. I knew a little something about abandonment.
“What about your family?” she asked, innocently.
“I have a big extended family back in Minnesota. Grandparents and cousins. They love me. I love them. I just haven’t been back to visit in a while.”
“Why’s that? And where are your parents?”
I closed my eyes and flopped an arm over my forehead, not answering, caught in the dark past.
She was silent for a moment, then in a small voice said, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I hated that I’d made her feel bad. That hadn’t been my intention. I just hated remembering. I shifted on the bed, and Miss Cecily’s rock necklace found its way to the hollow at my throat, reminding me of Miss Cecily’s statement, that the rock was supposed to help me see. See what, though?
“My dad had too much to drink one night when he was out with my mom,” I said softly. “He hit another car head-on, going seventy miles an hour. There were no survivors. I was seventeen.” And three months later, Kara, the one person who’d brought me comfort during the worst time in my life, betrayed me to the point of devastation.
“I’m so sorry,” Aimee whispered, stroking my skin with her soft fingertips. “You’ve had a huge loss. I don’t know how someone could get through something like that.”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, you can’t get over it. But I found a way to get past it.”
“Through music?”
How intuitive of Aimee, to realize that. “Yeah. At first it was because the music got into my blood, you know? Like oxygen. Later…never mind.” Later, it had been the crazy partying, the wild nights leading to wild days, the women, that had helped me get over what had happened back in Hallvard Hill, but deep down I knew I hadn’t truly gotten over it. That was the reason I rarely went home. Because I was too embarrassed to face my family after what had gone down. After the accusations that Ka
ra had made. I was afraid that even though they’d stuck by my side, that they didn’t appear to have believed anything Kara had said, that maybe they had.
Of course, I didn’t want Aimee to know all those details. And even though I once again was tempted to tell her I was the Corbin Ross of Point Break, Cindy’s words of warning clanged loud and clear in my head: if Aimee knew I was a rock star, she’d have nothing to do with me.
And I wanted more time with her. I wanted the summer.
I switched the topic back onto her, asking, “So if your mom wasn’t around much, did you have to fend for yourself a lot?”
Aimee nodded, and some light returned to her eyes. “I’d work at Evangeline’s and make enough to feed myself, and her, too, if she were home long enough. But that’s where I learned to make desserts, was at Evangeline’s. When my grandma Vivien was alive, she’d teach me her grandma’s recipe. My great-grandma started the roadhouse, you know, way back when. Named it after herself. I want to follow the tradition and name my bake shop Aimee’s Decadent Desserts.”
I shifted. “What bake shop?” asked, lazily tracing a circle with my fingertip on her smooth shoulder. “I thought you baked in the kitchen at Evangeline’s.”
“I do, but I don’t want to do that forever. I’ve wanted to open my own bake shop for years. An old diner came up for sale in town and I’m buying it. Since there’s already a professional kitchen installed, it won’t take more than a new paint job and some minor repair work to get Aimee’s Decadent Desserts up and running.”
I let out a low whistle, showing how impressed I was with her drive. Some women wanted a man to take care of them—Kara easily came to mind—but not Aimee. She seemed determined to make it on her own. “When’s all this happening?”
“End of the month. My down payment is due then.” She curled up against me, her warm skin comforting even in the summer heat.